Thu. Mar 28th, 2024

The apex court in September early this year declined to restrict people with criminal cases from contesting Elections. Though the highest court suggested creating a law to ban people with criminal cases from contesting polls on Parliament, the SC bench, headed by CJI Dipak Misra, had said: “The sooner the better, before it becomes fatal to democracy.”

The highest court has also said that Candidates having such records have to submit affidavits showing the full details about the case.

The need for such a law is again felt as at least 231 candidates contesting in the Telangana assembly elections have serious criminal cases, including murder, kidnapping, and crimes against women.

An analysis of affidavits of 1,777 candidates from various parties, done by Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), an organization that works towards Electoral Reforms has found that 368 candidates have criminal cases against them. All these cases are pending with police stations. Out of which, 231 have been an accused of serious offenses.

On Monday, the Telangana state co-ordinator of ADR, and Telangana Election Watch, D Rakesh Reddy, released the reports on the criminal background, education, financial status, and assets of the state assembly election candidates. The Report is based on the affidavits submitted by the candidates along with their nomination papers.

“We have analyzed the self-submitted affidavits of 1,777 of the 1,821 candidates, who are in the electoral race. For remaining 44 candidates, we could not analyze affidavits because the affidavits uploaded by them were not properly scanned or they were not uploaded on the Election Commission of India(ECI) Website” said State ADR co-ordinator D Rakesh Reddy.

The ballot game in the state is slated for December 7, while the counting of votes will take place on December 11 along with other state assembly elections.

ALSO READ: More than 3500 file nomination for upcoming polls

By talharashid

Part-time Traveler| Full-time Political Enthusiast | Foodie | Strong Believer of Freedom of Speech and Expressions!

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